'The logic of appropriateness': understanding non-compliance in South African local government

Abstract

Abstract:Local government is central to the delivery of the state's developmental agenda, but many municipalities record poor financial management and operational outcomes. Mainstream explanations of these focus on the low level of skills of officials and/or their self-interested and unethical behaviour. As a result, proposed remedies focus on training, raising ethical standards, and increased regulation. None of these initiatives appear to be working, however. Drawing on fieldwork which largely focused on investigating the narratives of non-compliance, this paper suggests that this issue is far more complex than the mainstream explanations suggest. Both codified and uncodified rules interact in complex ways to influence bureaucratic actions and decision making. The framework of 'logics of appropriateness' offers a more useful approach to explaining non-compliance in local government, because it facilitates a richer and more nuanced analysis of the multiple rules that determine the behaviour of public officials in post-apartheid South Africa.